November, 191 1. 



American l^ee JoarDaij 



pretty carefully durin? the past 20 years, 

 and have found that half a mile is as good as 

 a much greater distance." 



He then went on to say at length re- 

 garding the time the queen was gone 

 from her hive on her wedding-trip, 

 from which he was sure he had reached 

 the right conclusion. He gave this 

 time as 5 minutes, and from this he 

 reasoned that it would be impossible 

 for a queen to fly more than that far 

 and return, or more than a mile during 

 such a short space of time, say nothing 

 of the time of mating. He claimed 

 queens were very slow of flight ; that 

 drones would fly a mile or more, but 

 queens would not. But when I wrote 

 asking him what was to hinder those 

 drones from being that mile from 

 home when the queen reached the end 

 of her half mile, he was silent regard- 

 ing the matter. 



Now, if the drones go a mile from 

 home, and the queen a half miie, very 

 many mismatings could happen three 

 times the distance he gave, or 1>^ miles 

 away from where our choice queens 

 and drones were reared, which made 

 his whole claim only guesswork. And 

 this was from a man who reared hun- 

 dreds and thousands or queens, and 

 sent them all over the country as pure. 



And we have in our ranks today 

 those who believe that \}i to 2 miles is 

 all the distance needed to insure the 

 pure mating of stock. 



I do not wonder, sometimes, that 

 these come to such a belief, for it is far 

 easier to believe something we wish to 

 believe than it is something that re- 

 quires lots of labor and sacrifice to 

 meet.something we will have to did we 

 dig deep enough to prove the logical 

 conclusion of the whole matter. 



Now we will take the 2-mile belief, 

 which is the greatest distance many 

 will allow. At tliat distance we have 

 an area of territory 4 miles in diameter, 

 or 2 miles in every direction from our 

 selected queens and drones. To the 

 o^e who never tried making sure that 

 there were no drones within a distance 

 of 4 miles in diameter, or 2 miles in 

 every direction from his apiary; and 

 also the making sure that there were 

 no undesirable drones among his own 

 bees, this might seem a comparatively 

 easy undertaking ; but the one who has 

 tried k/io-ws that there are very few 

 problems in apiculture that can equal 

 such a proposition. And especially is 

 this true where there aretracts of wood- 

 land having large and aged trees in 

 which there are cavities in abundance 

 suitable for a home for all absconding 

 swarms. It is bad enough for the one 

 living in a an open country, for even 

 here bees frequently go into the walls 

 of old buildings, and clefts in the rocks. 

 But where there is nothing of this kind 

 in the way, we have all the domestic 

 bees within this area to contend with. 



And this contention is often some- 

 thing quite disagreeable, for, try the 

 best we can, it is not every one who 

 keeps bees that is willing to allow us to 

 make a change of the whole of the 

 queens in his apiary, even if we will 

 furnish and introduce one of our best 

 improved queens to each of his colo- 

 nies without trouble or cost to him. 

 And if there is one colony of undesir- 

 able stock within this area, that col- 

 ony, if unmolested, is quite likely to 

 rear more drones than the practical 



apiarist will allow in a score of his 

 colonies, while with an obstinate per- 

 son who has from 20 to 50 colonies, 

 our task is well-nigh helpless. 



Then, should we find all agreeable to 

 our changing their queens from the 

 common stock to our best improved 

 Italians, we have no choice of individ- 

 ual drones. What would the average 

 breeder of our domestic animals think 

 of the proposition of improving his 

 horses, cattle, sheep, swine, or poultry, 

 without the privilege of knowing any 

 of the characteristics of the male from 

 which the offspring of his best selected 

 mother was to come, knowing nothing 

 only that it would be from the same 

 race or strain as the mother ? 



Without going further into this mat- 

 ter, it will be seen how the apiarist 

 who is alive to the improvement of his 

 stock is handicapped. And then, when 

 this live apiarist has dug to the very 

 bottom of aft'airs, he is compelled to be- 

 lieve that his selected queens will often 

 mate with drones .5 miles away, so 

 that his area must be 10 miles in diam- 

 eter instead of 4, this handicapped part 

 rises up almost as a mountain before 

 him. Therefore, I have done the best 

 I could reasonably to procure all Ital- 

 ian queens from my best stock within 

 the last-named distance from my api- 

 ary, and, later, when I was desirous of 

 arriving to the nearest perfection pos- 

 sible, I have each year followed a plan 

 looking toward this greater perfection. 

 Near the close of the main honey-flow, 

 at which time the very last eggs for 

 drones will be laid by my choicest 

 drone-mothers, I have massed this 

 drone-brood in a very strong 2 and 3 

 story queenless colony, the third story 

 generally being almost entirely of 

 honey, so that these drones need not 

 be scrimped for the food necessary to 

 their full development, and frequent 

 flights later on when all other drones 

 are driven out and killed at the end of 

 the drone season. 



At the time the other drones are 

 being driven out, queen-cells are started 

 from my best queen-mother, the colo- 

 nies rearing them are liberally fed and 

 shaken up so as to produce the best 

 specimens possible, when, at about the 

 time these young queens will fly to 

 mate, the colony having the best drones 

 (which have been preserved from death 

 while the others were being slaugh- 

 tered, by the means already given) is 

 opened on some cloudy, cool day, when 

 there is no fear from robber-bees, and 

 all the combs carefully looked over, 

 picking off and killing every inferior 

 drone as to size, imperfections, color, 

 or in any way deformed, so that we 

 have nothing but hand-picked stock 

 left along the drone-line for our queens 

 to mate. This is the best thing I know 

 of so far in sight ; but I have been ex- 

 perimenting, and hoping that some- 

 thing better might soon appear. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



Directions for Hunting Wild 

 Bees 



BY HARRY A. PACKARD. 



Honey-gathering from the nests of 

 wild bees is a lucrative occupation, and 

 though there are modern ways, tlie old 



methods employed by the veteran bee- 

 hunter seem to be about as successful 

 as any in the long run. 



After making a small box with a lit- 

 tle trap door to it, I put in a small 

 piece of honey-comb, then fill the cells 

 with sweetened water — sugar diluted 

 with water, very thick. 



This prepared, I station myself in 

 some favorable spot in the woods and 

 try to attract a bee to the feast of 

 sugar. Unless caught by a bird, or 

 prevented by some accident, the bee 

 will invariably return for more sweet 

 just as quickly as the first load is de- 

 posited. 



In a few minutes I have quite a 

 swarm frequenting the little box, gath- 

 ering the sweet and flying in a pretty 

 straight line to their hive. 



As soon as I get a line on the bees I 

 can get pretty accurate information of 

 their home hive. After that, if one is 

 familiar with the woods — and no one 

 hunts bees unless he is versed in wood- 

 craft — the work is easy. 



It is well to begin operation early in 

 the morning, within a mile or more of 

 a mountain slope, where there are 

 likely to be hollow trees. 



It is an easy matter to gather a few 

 bees from the wild flowers and drop 

 them into a box. The comb serves 

 simply as something for the bees to 

 stand on to prevent their wings from 

 being smeared, as then they couldn't 

 fly. Then when you are all ready to 

 begin your bee-hunting, let one of the 

 bees enter the apartment where the 

 sugar and water is. The bee will buzz 

 around for a while, but put your hat 

 over the glass so as to darken the box, 

 and the bee is quite sure to settle down 

 and begin feeding. 



Then put the box on a stake a few 

 feet higher, built for the purpose; slip 

 off the cover, and stand back a few 

 paces. In a few moments the bee will 

 slowly rise, make a few spiral flights to 

 get the bearings, then start on a 

 straight line for the hive. 



If the bee goes towards civilization 

 it is usually safe to assume that it is a 

 domestic bee, and it is best to try an- 

 other. When one starts toward the 

 mountain it is equally sure to be a wild 

 bee. If the swarm is not more than 

 two miles away, it will return in the 

 course of 10 or 15 minutes, and others 

 will usually come with it. 



As soon as there is a well-established 

 line running, it is usually well to cross 

 the line by shutting the box and keep- 

 ing a few bees captive, and taking 

 them a quarter of a mile to another 

 spot, and there set up again. 



In a little while there will be another 

 line at the work, and where the two- 

 lines intersect the "hive" may be 

 found. 



In Praise of the Honey-6ee 



BY D. M. MACDONALD. 



As a home hobby or pastime no 

 other pleasurable or health-giving can 

 compare with apiculture, while it has 

 the further important recommendation 

 that it is a paying one, especially for 

 those leading a sedentary life. No bet- 

 ter can be found, as the time devoted 

 to it is spent in the open air with Na- 

 ture, and all her works for a studv. 



